He didn’t know it at the time, but Bryan Leach AB ’00 now traces the greatest moment of his life to a chance encounter during his third week at Harvard College. After ascending from understudy to the starring role in a theater production of Dangerous Liaisons, Leach met Jennifer Gaudiani AB ’97, a fourth-year student working on hair and makeup for the play. The two started dating and the rest, as they say, is history.
Nearly three decades later, the couple is approaching 22 years of marriage. Harvard remains an important foundation for them—not only for their love story but also for the academic, social, and professional opportunities it has provided. “We love Harvard, and we feel immensely grateful for what it’s brought to our lives,” Gaudiani says.
Driven by a desire to ensure that all Harvard undergraduates have access to similar opportunities, Leach and Gaudiani recently made a gift to support the Harvard College Rising Scholars Program (RSP).
Launched in 2023, RSP aims to provide first-year students with a strong start. Offered to a cohort of incoming Harvard undergraduates from high schools with limited resources and minimal college-level academic enrichment, the program begins with a seven-week intensive experience on campus that introduces Rising Scholars to Harvard’s academic expectations, helps develop their academic voices, familiarizes them with the resources available at Harvard, and fosters connections among students to create a network of support.
“The flexibility of this gift has enabled us to pilot our best ideas and then course correct as we see what’s most effective,” says Amanda Claybaugh PhD ’01, dean of Undergraduate Education and Samuel Zemurray Jr. and Doris Zemurray Stone Professor of English. “We now know how to get these students to where they need to be by the start of their first-year fall.”
Philanthropy helps the University cover the cost of travel, housing, food, tuition, activities, and any lost summer income so Rising Scholars can focus on adjusting to life at Harvard.
“Everybody who arrives at Harvard—no matter their background—feels impostor syndrome,” says Leach, who notes that while both he and Gaudiani attended well-resourced high schools, they still felt underprepared at times for the challenges of Harvard. “One can only imagine how it feels when there are fewer people who have grown up the way you did or who look like you on campus.”
“Harvard genuinely believes that students from a wide variety of backgrounds can make a spectacular impact on the University community and in their own communities thereafter.”
— Jennifer gaudiani AB ’97
Rising Scholars also receive guidance throughout the year from additional cohort-based programming and enhanced advising. In their second summer, scholars are guaranteed funding to participate in faculty-led research or undertake extra coursework for credit as they continue their intellectual journeys.
“This is not just a check-box solution,” says Gaudiani, who recognizes the far-reaching impact of the RSP not just for the cohort but for the entire student body—and the world beyond Harvard’s gates. “Harvard genuinely believes that students from a wide variety of backgrounds can make a spectacular impact on the University community and in their own communities thereafter.”
“Harvard is the most extraordinary convening force in the world,” adds Leach. “It brings together people who would never meet otherwise—who are from all sorts of life experiences and diverse perspectives. To complement that by supporting students’ sense of belonging and preparing them to take advantage of all that Harvard has to offer just seemed like a great way to give back.”
For Leach and Gaudiani, the program represents a pathway to helping all students succeed at Harvard.
“Harvard was a ‘sliding doors’ moment in our lives,” Leach reflects, “and we want to create that moment in other people’s lives.”
